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Saturday, May 19, 2012

Ian Williams

Obama is not perfect, but at least he is not deranged

by Ian Williams

Saturday, May 19th, 2012

Those of us who said it made no difference and went on to let
Margaret Thatcher win power in Britain were disastrously wrong. We still
live with the consequences. And the current crop of Republicans makes
Thatcher look like everyone’s favourite aunt.
Barack Obama is actually a traditional Chicago politician. He takes
large donations from corporate interests. His recent reconversion to the
cause of same-sex marriage probably owes more to the potential
munificence of gay donors than any deep attachment to civil rights.
Nonetheless Obama is very different from the recidivist Jurassic
conservatives. The gay marriage issue is emblematic. Heaven knows that,
in the land of serial philandering and rich divorce lawyers,
heterosexual marriage is a somewhat compromised issue – even discounting
Mitt Romney’s polygamous Mormon ancestors. Interestingly, the real
die-hard conservatives who bankroll the election campaigns are not
socially or religiously conservative all, any more than their
neo-conservative chums are. But, between them, they know how to pull the
strings of those who are.
It is hardly surprising that they can work this on conservative and
evangelical voters when allegedly progressive Americans are prepared to
ignore their own collective economic and social interests, and abstain
or throw their vote to protest candidates because they see Obama as
insufficiently supportive, just as millions on the right will vote
against him because they see him as insufficiently fervent against gay
marriage or anti-abortion.
Approaching the presidential election, the Supreme Court is pondering
the constitutionality of the Obama healthcare bill, and it seems sadly
likely that, in the 21st century, they will decide that this faltering
step forward into the 20th century is not what the Founding Fathers
intended. The conservative majority on the bench looks at the world
through a politically expedient prism and, like most Republican
legislators, are prepared to exact any price from their fellow citizens
in the interests of ensuring the defeat of Obama. One almost has to
admire their almost Bolshevik determination of purpose compared with the
wobbly Democrats. Ironically, the much-reviled “Obamacare” is modelled
on the system introduced by then Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.
Symptomatic of the conservative success in promoting a fact-thin agenda,
opinion polls show that most of the elements of Obamacare enjoy popular
support, but that the overall bill has been calumniated into negative
ratings. But playing fast and loose with the facts goes naturally with a
flexible attitude to history, as was shown when Republicans chased each
other baying into the Fox News hole about Obama’s temerity in claiming
credit for ordering the assault on Osama bin Laden’s household. Scarcely
a single Republican seems to remember President George W Bush, let
alone the famous “Mission Accomplished” banner when he landed on the USS
Abraham Lincoln – at the beginning of10 years of war in Iraq.
While reality-based voters should accept that a system that insures
almost everyone is an advance on one that left more than 40 million
people uninsured, some on the American left are as ideologically
obsessed as the right – which is why so many find common ground in
supporting the derangedly conservative Ron Paul in preference to a
President whose signature achievements in bringing millions into the
healthcare system and saving large swathes of American industry are so
easily overlooked when your vantage point is an ivory tower of political
correctness.
A big issue for some on the left, who would have picketed the
Normandy landings as foreign intervention, is that Ron Paul is from the
isolationist wing of American politics and wants to cut support for
Israel. Obama finished combat operations in Iraq and is winding down inAfghanistan . But ideologues would rather be complicit in re-electing the people
who started the wars. Millions may die, but the political purity
survives intact. On the Middle East, Obama has not shone, despite being a
marginal improvement over recent predecessors. But let Benjamin
Netanyahu bear oblique witness: his nightmare is a second-term Obama
holding his feet to the fire. While the President might not be
inspiring, as was said about the United Nations, he might not take us to
heaven, but at least he will stop us descending to hell.

More columns than the Parthenon

Born in Liverpool, now resident in New York, "Tequila," "UNtold" "Deserter," "Alms Trade" and "Rum" author Ian has written for newspapers and magazines around the world, ranging from the Australian to The Independent, from the New York Observer and the Village Voice to the Financial Times. He is the UN correspondent for Tribune, and senior analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus.
He has pundited on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, CBC and innumerable radio stations, for example appearing on Hard Ball,the O'Reilly Factor, and Wolf Blitzer. Online he writes for Salon, AlterNet and MaximsNews, among many others. He appears in Comment is Free on Guardian Unlimited.
His books are listed below - click and buy!